Video: Introducing color profiles

Here, I want to continue our conversation about color management. But this time I want to focus in on working with different color profiles or color spaces. I want to pose this question: Why do color profiles or color spaces even matter? One of our previous movies, we talked about setting up different color spaces or profiles. I want to go ahead and open up that dialog here briefly just to remind you. I talked about how you could choose a color space and you could select one from this pulldown menu. Well, we can also choose color profiles for images which are based on these different color spaces.

In Photoshop CS6 for Photographers, author, photographer, and teacher Chris Orwig explores Photoshop from the perspective of the photographer.

The course details the features and techniques behind enhancing and retouching photos, preparing them for print and online publishing, and much more. Chris demonstrates how to make basic edits in Camera Raw, develop and save color profiles, work with layers and selections, tone and sharpen, and retouch images while retaining their natural character.

Chris also shares some creative tips and project ideas, such as converting a photo to black-and-white and enhancing a portrait with hand-painted masks. The course also covers workflow details, such as organizing images in Bridge and Mini Bridge, optimizing Photoshop preferences, and calibrating your monitor.

Introducing color profiles

Here, I want to continue our conversation about color management.But this time I want to focus in on working with different color profiles or color spaces.I want to pose this question:Why do color profiles or color spaces even matter?One of our previous movies, we talked about setting up different color spaces or profiles.I want to go ahead and open up that dialog here briefly just to remind you.I talked about how you could choose a color space and you could select onefrom this pulldown menu.Well, we can also choose color profiles for images which are based on thesedifferent color spaces.

Well, why do these matter and what does this have to do with color management?Let's go back to our slide and let's talk a little bit about this.We have a few different main color spaces that we use, sRGB, Adobe RGB, and Pro Photo.These color spaces allow us to create and work with a certain gamut of colors.Here, you can see a 3D model which shows a few different color spaces. And a lotof times when we get into this whole topic of color spaces and profiles, well,it gets a little bit abstract and vague.

So I like to make this really simple. Let's think of it this way.You can think of that sRGB color space kind of like having a really small box of crayons.You have a limited color palette.Adobe RGB on the other hand, well, that's like having that bigger box of crayonswith the built-in sharpener that never really works.And then we have Pro Photo. Pro Photo is huge.It's like having that box of crayons with 200 crayons in it.Again, we have more color options, more variations, more shades and tones anddifferent types of saturation.

So we have these different color spaces, and these different color spaces, well,they're really important.As you can imagine, as we choose a color space or as we tag one of ourimages with a profile based on one of these, well, it really defines thecolor in the image.If we were to look at this in perhaps a little bit more of a specific way, wecan see one of these color space models.Here, in this inner model you can see I have the RGB or Adobe RGB (1998) color space.

The outer one--the one which reaches further--is Pro Photo.With Pro Photo, you can see that we can create reds which are more saturated,greens which are brighter and more saturated.It gives us a wider gamut of color.So these color spaces and profiles, well, they really matter.Well, how then does this relate to Photoshop and why does this matter?Well, if we go back to this concept, we can see that I have an image here andI have two devices.Well, if I'm going to display this image on this device, the color is going tobe created versus RGB.

That's how color is created via light.On the other hand, if I'm going to print this image, well, the printer is goingto create the color for this photograph in a color space which is called CMYK,and that's the color space that is used when color is created via ink.Let's dig a little bit deeper into this topic.Let me pull up another slide which illustrates the differences between these two color spaces.One of the things that's different about this is that one color space isadditive while another is subtractive.

Here, I think you can see that.The RGB color space, the more color we have, you can see in the overlap, themore white it becomes.CMYK on the other hand, the more we have, well, the darker it becomes--the more black.You've experienced these different color spaces really without even knowing it,and what's interesting about this is that that RGB color space, well, it's howmonitors create color.The printer, well, it creates color just completely differently.So let's go back to the other slide here.

So as we're thinking about working with our monitor and also our printer andtrying to have these good practices when it comes to color management, what wehave to keep in mind is that when we have a photograph, we have to have a fewelements combined together in order to be able to clearly translate the colorthat we're seeing here say to another device.We've talked about these elements already.We need to have a good ambient light source so that we're viewing coloraccurately in our setting.We also need to make sure that we have a monitor profile.

We need to calibrate our monitors.And then finally, we need a color profile for the image itself, and we canchoose that profile from inside of Photoshop.We'll be talking about how we can do that in the next movie, but for now I justwant to refer to that.And so what will happen is if we have good ambient lighting, if we have amonitor profile and a color profile on our image, well, if we send all of thosethings to another device, well, ideally we'll be able to reproduce that color.And this will ensure that our odds at reproducing the color that we're seeingon our monitor will more closely match the colors that will be created on another device.

In other words, color management, it's all about clarifying communication.And what we need to do is think about these different elements and how wecan bring these elements together in order to create more accurate and beautiful color.Well, now that we've been introduced to this whole topic conceptually, let's goahead and really dig into it and see how we can start to work with these concepts.And let's do that in the next movie.

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